desperateness of the Disease magnifies the skill of the Physician so the fatal and universal Degeneracy of the Sons of Men commends the transcendent love of God in their Recovery and Redemption Greater love than this can no Man show than to lay down his Life for his Friend but herein has God commended his love to us in that while we were Enemies to God and righteousness and strangers to his life Christ dyed for us Such is that Testimony and Witness which our Saviour bears to Divine Love and Goodness every word of which is strangely emphatical So in such a wonderful and transcendent manner God the great Lord of all Beings who stands not in need of any of his Creatures but is Infinite Fulness and Happiness to Himself loved first and without any Motive or Occasion of this love given from us herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us the World not only the particular Nation of the Jews with whom formerly he entred into Covenant but the whole Race of Mankind Christ becoming a Propitiation for our sins says the Apostle the best Interpreter of himself 1 Joh. 2.2 and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole World that he gave delivered unto Death freely and that upon no other Motive or Invitation but that of his own Eternal Goodness and Love his only begotten Son not a Servant or an Angel not an adopted but his own Natural Son that Son who is one with himself and in whom he is well pleased as the obedience of Abraham was more grateful to God when he with-held not his Son his only Son from him The whole Gospel is a Design and Contrivance of Infinite Love and Goodness a palpable Pledge and Assurance of which was the sending of Jesus Christ from Heaven He that spared not his own Son says the Apostle as if he had said The delivering up of our Lord Jesus Christ to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of Men is so high a Demonstration of Infinite Love that it begets in us a confident Assurance and full Perswasion that the same goodness will not fail of bestowing upon us whatever may possibly contribute to our everlasting Happiness as far as our Natures are capable of The summe of all is this that to Infinite Goodness we owe not only the Production but the continual Preservation of our Beings not only the freeing us from a certain Misery and a just and deserved Punishment but the receiving us into grace and favour and investing us with a Happiness much bigger than our hopes and expectations even the Eternal enjoyment of Himself in Heaven And that this should be wrought and effected by Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God who left the Sacred Mansions of Heaven and veiled his Glory under a clould of Flesh and Blood and while he lived upon Earth endured the contradictions of sinners the bitter reproaches of vile and ungodly Men and at last suffered an Ignominious and accursed Death upon the Cross What is it but an everlasting Monument of Divine Goodness such a high Demonstration of Infinite Love as may well make us cry out with wonder and amazement Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 2. Secondly in the Frame and Mystery of the Gospel there is a clear Demonstration of Infinite Wisdome To them who are called says the Apostle Christ the Power and the Wisdom of God i. e. Though the preaching of the Gospel were a stumbling block to the Jews and accounted but foolishness by the Greeks the one expecting their Messiah to be an earthly Prince and dreaming of nothing but worldly Felicity and the other counting it not worth the hearing because not agreeing with the Principles of that vain Philosophy they had addicted themselves to yet to those who were docible tractable and obedient there appeared an Infinite Wisdome and an Eternal Understanding they could not look into it but they beheld as the same Apostle speaks the mysterious and recondite wisdome of God which he ordained before the World that is whose sacred plot and contrivance was not then framed or laid when it was first promulgated and manifested to the World but lay hid in the bosome of an Infinite Understanding from all Eternity 'T is true the loveliness and glory of this great Wisdome appears not so evidently to all partly from their own carelesness and negligence in not arriving to that measure and degree of Holiness which may fit and qualifie them for a clear discerning of it Hence the Apostle says that he speaks wisdome among them that are perfect such as were well grown in the practice of the Offices and Duties of Christianity such as had senses exercised to discern good and evil Heb. 5.14 and partly through the great Corruption Depravity and Degeneracy of the minds of others which put them into an utter Incapacity and Impossibility while they remain such of understanding Divine and Heavenly Truths for the natural animal or sensual man receives not the things of the spirit of God But where these Impediments are removed and the spirits of Men aptly disposed for the Reception of so great a Blessing such Persons behold with enravishment and joy the exact strokes and perfect lineaments of an Eternal Wisdome Which Wisdome appears 1. In the Admirableness of the Contrivance of the Gospel Christianity carries with it such evident Proofs of an Incomprehensible Wisdome that those sagacious Creatures the Angels imploy themselves in searching into it And surely it must needs be an admirable piece of Wisdome and a wonderful Contrivance that must draw those Blessed Creatures to look into it Now the Wonderfulness and Admirableness of the Evangelical Plot and Contrivance for the Salvation of Humane Souls shews it self 1. In finding out a way whereby God might demonstrate both his just and implacable hatred of sin and his exuberant Love and Goodness in saving Men. Sin is no part of God's Creation nor any thing of the true Nature of the Soul but an extraneous and adventitious Being brought first into the World by the Devil the great Enemy of Mankind It is the Destruction and Ruine of the Workmanship of God's own hands and being so infinitely contrary to his Sacred Life and Nature it is no wonder if he bear an irreconcileable hatred against it and seek by all means the driving it quite out of the World But although God by reason of the Infinite Purity and Holiness of his Nature could not look with any favourable eye upon sin yet his Almighty Love pitied his Creatures and his bowels yerned over them being as it were grieved and troubled at the heart that they should be miserable for ever Wherefore God through his Eternal Wisdome resolved upon a course which should both effectually extirpate and eradicate sin and evil out of the World and yet reduce those strayed souls which through it had revolted from his blessed
Heaven to strengthen and comfort his fainting Soul in these horrendous Conflicts 3. Christ suffering for Men's sins must needs have a distinct Apprehension of the manner measure and odiousness of them and beheld all this with a bleeding heart forasmuch as he saw himself cast into those sad circumstances bruised for the iniquities and wounded for the transgressions of Mankind All which put together were sufficient Causes of the highest grief and sorrow Consider now Jesus Christ the eternally beloved Son of God sorrowful and amazed sweating drops of Blood in his Agony bereaved of the sensibleness of Divine Assistance conflicting with the utmost Rage and Insultation of the Devil and dying a Painful and Ignominious Death upon the Cross and it gives the highest Demonstration of God's implacable Hatred against all sin that possibly can be imagined 2. The admirableness and wonderfulness of the Evangelical plot and contrivance declares it self in rendring this Way and Method effectual for the salvation of Men. That it should not be lost labour or a work to no purpose alarming the World with great hopes and expectations and at last become abortive or prove nothing but a windy birth but that it should really attain the end for which it was designed that is that men should receive benefit by it and be eternally saved To this purpose three things are necessary 1. That what God requires be in it self possible 2. That Man be endued with a sufficient power 3. That some allowance be made for our Infirmities 1. First I say that the Commands of the Gospel be possible For it were the most unreasonable and Tyrannical thing in the World to exact that of another which we know he is in no Possibility of performing and therefore being a thing so abhorrent and repugnant to the natural reason and equity of Mankind it is at no hand to be attributed to God whose very Nature is the most perfect and living Law of Justice Wherefore the Gospel being given to be the Religion of all Mankind and for no other end but their everlasting Benefit and Blessedness we cannot but imagine all the duties and commands required of them to be possible to be done for otherwise it would be so far from contributing to their advantage that it would be but an Exprobration of their misery and a Tyrannical and Arbitrarious Insultation over their calamitous condition Nay we are assured that the laws of Righteousness required of us by the Gospel are not only possible but gracious and easie and that from the mouth of the Blessed Author and giver of them My yoke says he is easie and my burden is light and the beloved Apostle has left it upon Record that the commands of God are not grievous that is they are not insupportable burdens too heavy for the nature of Man to bear nor are they fetters and shackles of Iron contrived only to ensnare and make the Creation miserable but such gracious Precepts and Constitutions as are in themselves immutably good and so infinitely agreeable to the true and proper that is the Intellectual Nature of Man that he can no sooner understand his own happiness but he would chuse them if they had never been commanded The Wisdome of God never interesses it self in unprofitable things which surely this must have been if the Observance and Practice of the Injunctions of the Gospel had been in it self impossible Besides supposing such intolerable and impracticable things imposed upon the reason of Mankind it would subvert all future rewards and punishments As for Rewards there could be no such thing for Rewards are only upon the consideration of Duty and there can be no duty where the commands are impossible Nor can there be any equitable exaction of Punishment because the Law it self is not feasible and practicable and so the transgression becomes necessary and inevitable and no more in the power of Men to help than to hinder their being born into the World Wherefore upon the whole matter unless the Gospel contain only such things as are possible it is certain no man can be accountable for them unless we will suppose God such an Arbitrarious Being as acts by no other Law than that of his own Will and Authority which is all one as for a Man to think to get himself a name of Power and Soveraignty by going about all day and treading upon a few poor Worms And certainly it is all one to have no notion and apprehension of God at all and to think so meanly of him and so much below the excellency and dignity of his Blessed Nature and â—erfections But here it will be objected that if the commands of the Gospel be not only possible but easie and gracious how comes it then that Men are not presently made good and all the World become true Christians To this I have these things to reply 1. That God forces none to be good but having made us Rational Creatures he has endued us with a free Principle And without this there would be no such thing as Moral Goodness upon Earth for that which a man is compelled and forced to by the irresistible Determination of an exterior Principle is neither good nor evil in reference to him because it was not a true exertion of his will but an act of something without him And therefore should God irresistibly bend and incline the wills of Men to the Laws and Practice of Vertue it would take away the distinction of good and evil and Men would be what they are by a fatal necessity and not by choice Moreover should God forcibly make Men good it would rather destroy than recover the Nature of Mankind and make them more imperfect Creatures than they are already It is the glory of our faith that being tryed it be found unto praise and honour but what praise can be due to that which is performed by the violent constraint of an uncontroulable Power There would be little reason for the Scripture says a worthy Prelate so much to magnify the grace of faith as being so great a Vertue and so acceptable to God if every one were necessitated to it whether he would or no. 2. True Religion has a great disagreement with our present sinful Natures Christianity came into the World to curb our extravagant desires to restrain the sinful and exorbitant affections of the Animal life and to draw off our minds from the fading and inchanting Beauties of sense to the living and Immortal forms of righteousness and truth And it is no wonder if it be accounted troublesome and uneasie to a carnal mind when its whole design is to let out the corrupt life and blood of the old man and to renew men into that faultless nature sin and wickedness had destroyed Religion is not such a formidable and difficult thing such an insuperable task in it self but because 't is an affliction to our natural life to do violence to our lusts and bodily Passions
the Jews relate of the Bath-kol are for the most part fabulous or else Magical and Satanical Delusions Certain it is as a very learned Author observes there is not the least mention in the Holy Scriptures of a Voice speaking from Heaven between the giving of the Law and the Baptism of our Saviour And it were very strange if God withdrawing those ordinary ways of revealing his Will under the second Temple should yet continue the most noble of all by speaking to Men from Heaven And that we may not think there was any plot or combination between John the Baptist and our Saviour Christ it is said Joh. 1.33 that John knew him not but had this sign given him that upon whom he should see the spirit descending and remaining on him that same was the true Messias and Saviour of the World And to this Voice our Lord himself appeals Joh. 6.27 Him hath God the Father sealed i. e. visibly approved and owned Christ from Heaven to the end that he having this wonderful attestation of God himself might be believed on in the World and his Doctrine as unquestionably received as the Letters of a King when his Seal is affixed to them 2. Another confirmation of Christ and his Doctrine was at his Transfiguration Mat. 17.5 A Voice comes out of the cloud which said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him And this St. Peter brings as a Demonstration of the Truth of the Gospel For we have not followed cunningly devised Fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ q. d. We have not imposed upon the Minds and Spirits of Men as the manner of cheaters and deceivers is but have delivered to you such things as we have seen and heard being eye-witnesses of his Majesty For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a Voice to him from the excellent Glory This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And this Voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount 3. God approved our Lord Jesus by inabling him to work Miracles which is such a clear Testimony of the Divine Mission of our Saviour that both Jews and Gentiles ought to be convinced by it To the Jews it ought to be Convictive from their own Law Deut. 18.22 When a Prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken Which Rule was given them to discern true Prophets from false for if the Prophet brought to them a New Doctrine and confirmed it by supernatural and miraculous Operations though he commanded them something contrary to the Law yet if he perswaded nothing but the worship of the One true God of Israel they ought to obey him forasmuch as there could be no greater Evidence of the Divine Testimony and Approbation than by inabling such a Man to work Miracles And though this General Rule might be applyed to all the Jewish Prophets yet did it more particularly respect the coming of the Messias there being none more conspicuous and illustrious for all those signs by which God would have the Prophet that speaks in his Name to be known than Jesus Christ Nor is it of less moment and argument to the Gentiles for Miracles being such unquestionable evidences of the Interposition of a Divine Power it follows that whoever shall lead a sincere and unblameable life and teach nothing but the worship of the true God and the conscientious practice of Virtue and for the confirmation of this his Doctrine shall work Miracles we ought to believe him sent from God This was it which convinced Nicodemus We know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these Miracles that thou doest except God be with him He saw that Jesus Christ professed and commanded only the worship of the true God and that he exhorted only to the practice of real Righteousness and Holiness and therefore that those great Miracles which he wrought exceeding the power of evil spirits were a sensible Demonstration that he was sent from God It may now not improperly be inquired Whether Miracles are always necessary to beget belief of the Divine Authority of a Doctrine and how far they are so To this I answer that Miracles to some Persons and in some Circumstances are proper means to beget assent for that they are not always convictive appears from the Incredulity of the Jews whom neither the frequent and stupendious Miracles of our Saviour nor of his Apostles could perswade but notwithstanding this powerful way of conviction they put the Master to death as a Malefactor and murder his Servants I say therefore that to some Persons and in some circumstances Miracles are proper means to beget Faith 1. They are necessary means to them who have been constantly used and trained up by Miracles Such were the Jewes who received their Law in a miraculous manner the Divinity of which was frequently afterwards attested by Miracles and upon any great and notable defection of the People to Idolatry God was pleased to reduce them by sending and inabling a Prophet to work Miracles Now it is very unreasonable to think that the Gospel which should introduce and make so mighty a change in the Judaical Oeconomy should gain belief of them unassisted of miraculous evidence and testimony who were already in possession of a Law which God himself had so often owned and set his Seal to by Miracles and supernatural Operations Hence it came to pass that the Jews demanded of Christ a sign Joh. 2.18 forasmuch as he called God his Father and carried himself in the way of a Prophet they require him to evidence this his Authority by some miraculous Actions which our blessed Saviour both promises and fulfils by raising himself from the Dead 2. Miracles do more powerfully strike the senses and so are more apt to beget belief in them who are not capable of a rational apprehension and dijudication of Truth Hitherto we may refer Christ's upbraiding Chorazin and Bethsaida If the mighty works which were done in them had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes that is they would very probably have done so for they lying under a great and inveterate Ignorance and being so perfectly enslaved to sense were more likely to have been rouzed out of their blockishness and stupidity by miracles which so forcibly strike the imagination than by the most Rational Discourse to which they had so little vital congruity and agreeableness And it is very observable that the Apostles never wrought a Miracle but upon an urgent occasion and great necessity where they found their Auditors capable and apprehensive When the great Apostle of the Gentiles S. Paul came to Athens a place long famous for all Polite Learning
though condemned as a Malefactor and that I was owned and approved of God in that he visibly took me up into Heaven Which plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit in such a wonderful manner whenas he had been withdrawn from the Jews as to those extraordinary and Prophetical gifts for the space of four hundred years was a Testimony clear as the Sun that Jesus was the true Messias the beloved Son of GOD and therefore that they ought to have believed on Him 6. Lastly Christ was approved by the Spirit of Prophecy Their want of understanding and incredulity of the Prophetick Oracles was that for which our Saviour upbraided his two Disciples O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Whereby we are informed that the Prophets had long ago given not only a character and description of the Person but of the Doctrine Death Burial and Resurrection of the Messiah and these Prophecies being so directly applicable to Jesus and to none else it was an unquestionable proof that he was the true Messiah and that the World ought to believe on him This Argument St. Peter makes use of against the Jewes To him give all the Prophets witness q.d. If you believe not us the Apostles of Jesus yet believe your own Prophets who unanimously point out and refer to this Jesus whom we preach to you And thus St. Paul pleads for the Gospel Act. 26.22 that he taught no other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come By all these several ways it is very apparent that God hath born witness to Christianity and approved and owned the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ which is the first thing required to the credibility of the Gospel namely the Attestation of God himself 2. The Second is Rational Evidence and Conviction The most Noble Faculties of the Soul of Man are the Understanding and the Will and that Religion bear a Rational Evidence and Conviction it must be fitted with Arguments that must convince the Understanding and perswade the Will to a due Reception and entertainment of it Now the proper Object of the Understanding is Truth from whence it follows that Christianity must be true that it may be believed For the Truth of Religion I shall refer to those Learned Authors who have purposely handled that Argument and brought as clear Evidence as the thing it self is capable of And he that cannot believe without a Mathematical certainty declares himself to be very absurd and disingenuous and may upon the same grounds as well expect the same Demonstrative Evidence for the affairs of Humane life or to prove the Truth of the Chronicles of the Kings of England or France that is he is so strangely unreasonable as to desire such proof as the nature of the things will not bear though in the mean time he have the highest evidence and most unquestionable assurance of the Truth of Religion that the thing it self is capable of that is a Moral certainty For the Mind of Man may be as indubitably assured of the Truth of a Moral Proposition as of a Mathematical or Physical one although there be not the same way of Probation in all As for Example This is a self-evident Truth in Morals and needs no other light but that of its own to gain Assent That in those things which we have not seen nor experienced our selves we ought to believe them that say they have seen and experienced provided they live up to their profession and are not moved to it by secular respect Which if it be not assented to we must be Scepticks even in ordinary affairs and transactions of Humane life we must not believe there is such a Place as Constantinople nor credit any thing but our own Eyes and Ears and say in a larger sense than ever the Psalmist did that all men are lyars See more of this in Bishop Wilkins Principles of Natural Religion Now for the Will that Religion may have a full and compleat entertainment in the Soul of Man there must be something likewise to work upon that Wherefore to make a thing eligible it must have the appearance of Good that is it must have a sutableness congruity and harmony with the Intellectual Nature of Man and a tendency to promote the perfection thereof And such is the Christian Religion in its whole Frame and Contexture For let us consider who it is that owns and has interessed himself as the Blessed Author of the Evangelical Oeconomy even the Eternal Logos and Wisdome of God that Almighty Mind which has closely contracted and deeply seal'd upon all Intellectual Agents that large and diffusive wisdome that is seen in all the Parts of Heaven and Earth And to think that Christianity should be in any of its Parts unreasonable is to imagine this to be the only Unreasonable thing that ever the Divine Wisdome was the Author of and this alone of all his numerous Off-spring to be unlike the Father The Gospel does in the most intimate manner derive it self from Christ the Eternal Son of God and is especially owned and superintended by him as being the repairing that work which he alone made and which he alone can rectifie and to imagine that an Infinite Reason should propound any thing to us that were unreasonable is as fond as to say that cold can flow from fire or darkness positively ray from the bosome of light Jesus Christ did not bring a Religion into the World to perplex our minds and dazle our understandings but for the real good and behoof of the lapsed Creation to form our minds according to his own Image and to regenerate our spirits into a living nature of Truth and Righteousness which Design were utterly lost if there were not in Christianity a perfect symphony congruity and agreeableness with our Intellectual Natures Besides let any Man but consider how the Will is allured and solicited to Action and he shall find that it is then the most vigorously tempted forth when something is propounded which has a Natural sutableness and harmony with those Constitutive Principles of which we are made but on the contrary it is naturally averse to and not at all concerned with that to which it hath no vital sympathy or concord Which is an evident sign that Christianity is not only agreeable to but perfective of our Rational Powers What can be more agreeable to the true Nature of Man than Righteousness What more sutable to his higher and Diviner Faculties than Truth and Goodness These beautiful and glorious Forms shone bright in our Souls before Vice and Sin had covered and overspread them and forced our Minds into a Preternatural state Now Christianity is design'd for the Recovery of Us to our Pristine Health and Rectitude and tends to the enlargement of our better Powers and the Recovery of them from that narrow and contracted state sin and evil had brought them to Vice
continuance in goodness to his own solitary effort or powers but to the benign and auspicious influence of the Divine grace and spirit It is he that forms in us the Life and Nature of God that makes us Holy Righteous and Good enlightning the Eyes of our Minds that we may see the inestimable riches of the Gospel and convinces us of the Truth of the Great Promises of Salvation It is He that daily by a Vital Energy purges and refines the minds of Men from all filthiness and uncleanness and consecrates their hearts as Holy Temples unto God It is he that continually burns up and consumes our unruly lusts and breathes upon the Sacred Life of God in our Souls fanning it into a flame of love that we dwell in God and God in Us. Through his mighty Power we are secured from our Spiritual Enemies leading us with a Pillar of a Cloud by Day and a light of Fire by Night till he bring us to Heaven the true Land of Canaan But in all this the Divine Spirit does not pull and draw us like stocks and stones nor offer any irresistible violence to our wills nor must we expect that God should do all the work for us while we sit still but we must do it for our selves only he has graciously promised to concur and lend us his hand and his assistance Work out your salvation says the Apostle with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his good pleasure or according to your desire that is God stands ready to help you with Power and Ability to do it according to your desire or as you desire it of him and we are to take care that we actuate that Power which of his gracious bounty he confers upon us Which very thing makes us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with God as the Apostles are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labourers together with God in the Dispensation of the Gospel Having now discovered the Great Influence of the Divine Goodness and Wisdome in the Work of Man's Salvation it remains likewise that I now shew how the Power of God has interessed and concerned it self in the same For the Apostle tells the Corinthians that he Preached Christ to them not only the Wisdome but the Power of God And again to them who are saved the preaching of the Cross is the Power of God Now this Power manifested it self 1. In raising our Blessed Saviour from the Dead Thus St. Paul says that Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the Dead that is God did own and publickly declare him to be his beloved Son in that powerful manner of raising Him from the Dead And again he calls it the mighty power of God which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the Dead For when the Jews had crucified our Saviour the Cause of the Gospel as to all Humane Appearance lay dead and buried with him as a lost and undone Cause insomuch that the Disciples themselves were brought to this We trusted it had been he that should have redeemed Israel so little hopes and expectations had they of a new state of things when they saw their great Master dead upon the Cross But suffering Virtue being so illustrious an object of the Divine Providence God who owned and approved our Lord Jesus all the time of his life would not now suffer his Credit and Reputation to lye at stake being dead and therefore notwithstanding the malice of the Jews and the envious diligence of the spirits of Darkness asserts and maintains the Truth of his Mission by bringing him up to life again The impious care and industry of his Enemies made the glory of our Saviour's Innocence so much the more clear and conspicuous they look upon him as an Impostor and having heard him afore speak of his Resurrection they endeavour by all means to hinder it that they might blast his Memory and bury his Honour with Disgrace therefore they roll a great Stone to the Mouth of the Sepulchre sealing it probably with the Signet of Pilate and setting a Band of Souldiers to watch about his Grave But God that loved his Son Jesus to his Death and took the care of Him when he was laid in the Grave disappointed the hopes and expectations of the Jews and made their malicious contrivances subservient Testimonies to the Truth of his Resurrection A mighty Angel comes down from Heaven at whose Presence and awful Majesty the Keepers trembled and the Earth it self was moved and rolls away the Stone and sits upon it and the stupendious Power of the Divinity shakes the Territories of Night and slumber and dismantles the Prisons of the Grave and restores to our Saviour that Life the Jews bereaved him of notwithstanding all their fraudulent Practices and Machinations A palpable Indication of the mighty and efficacious Power of God who alone can call the things that are not and quicken and enliven the Dead beyond all Humane Thoughts and Apprehensions 2. The Power of God in the Gospel has been very notable in the Destruction of the Devils Kingdom When Mankind began to apostatize from God and fall into Idolatry he gave them over to the Tyranny and Dominion of the Prince of Darkness as a just Punishment of their wilful Adhesion to his Counsels and Inspirations and for Reasons reserved in the Depth and Abyss of Divine Providence permitted all the World save that he selected himself a Church out of the Posterity of Abraham to be abused by the Devil and to lye under that servitude and slavery till the coming of Christ into the World But when the Son of Righteousness was risen the Nations of the Earth soon saw and walked in his light and the Prediction of our Blessed Saviour became verified and fulfilled in the Ruine of the Devils Kingdome whose lapse and fall was like lightning from Heaven For notwithstanding the mutual Combinations and Confederacies of the Kings and Potentates of the Earth against the Lords anointed and his Disciples and Followers notwithstanding the furious Rage of Satan in stirring up and raising many cruel and bloody Persecutions against the Church yet the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed so far that the whole Roman Empire at last became Christian whereby the Devil utterly lost his hold his Oracles being silent and his whole Worship destroyed And surely had not the Christian Religion been of God it could never have so Universally prevailed against such Potent opposition of Men and Devils The hand and Power of God was visibly and eminently discovered in the ample Diffusion and high success of the Gospel which from such weak and small Beginnings ran and was glorious captivating the Minds of Men to the obedience of Christ's Laws and bringing the World under the Scepter of his Kingdome Which Destruction of the Devils Rule and Dominion over Mankind being